Cooking of food represents one of the first steps taken toward the development of human culture. Archaeological evidence has been found indicating that our primative humanoid ancestors frequently and regularly prepared food items by cooking. The earliest cooking methods involved merely placing food items in a fire or on a bed of coals. As sophistication increased, food was supported on sticks or crudely made racks to facilitate the cooking thereof. Such arrangements resulted in burned or wasted food as well as occassioning injury to the food preparers. As cooking techniques became more sophisticated various ovens, roasting pans and the like were employed.
Roasting, in which an article of food, usually meat, fish or fowl is backed in a pan or pot placed in an oven, is an early, and still popular, cooking technique. A problem encountered in roasting is that of removing food from the roasting pan. This problem is compounded by the fact that most commonly employed roasting pans are relatively deep and most roasted foods are highly proteinaceous and therefore prone to stick to a hot roasting pan. For this reason there was perceived a need for some means for the removal of roasted food from a pan which would not cause damage to the cooked food or expose the food preparer to dangers of burns.
Over the years, many utensils have been developed for the purpose of removing food from cooking vessels. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,263,863 of Crosby discloses a fish or fowl lifter comprised of a rigid support rack having a pair of handles attached thereto. U.S. Pat. No. 2,703,046 of Ahlquist discloses a flexible holder for supporting a piece of meat or fowl in a cooking vessel. A similar flexible holder is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,075,798 of Smith. U.S. Pat. No. 3,585,922 of Peterson discloses a roaster basket which is mechanically adjustable to accommodate various sized food items.
All of the foregoing patents describe holders or cradles for supporting an article of food during cooking and for removing the cooked article from a pan thereafter. One problem encountered in the use of all such prior art apparatus is that the holder or cradle itself interferes with the cooking process. In some instances, the holder prevents covering of a roasting pan because of projecting handles and the like. In other instances, portions of the holder contact the upper surface of the article being cooked therein so as to prevent basting or other operations the food preparer may choose to carry out.
The ideal rack for use in roasting meat and the like would be one that would allow for ready lifting and positioning of the food in a roasting pan but which would effectively "disappear" during the cooking process until again needed to remove the cooked food from the pan. It would also be preferable that such a roasting rack would be capable of being placed directly upon a serving platter without interfering with the carving and serving of the cooked food.
The present invention provides a novel and useful support rack particularly well suited for the roasting or other cooking of large items such as fowl, fish and large cuts of meat. The support rack of the present invention is collapsible so that when placed in a roasting pan no interference with either the cooking process or the roasting pan is encountered. The support rack of the present invention allows for ready removal and serving of the cooked food product without waste. Accordingly, it will be appreciated that the support rack of the present invention is a novel and useful food preparation implement allowing for easy and economical cooking and serving of large items of food. These and other advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the summary, drawings and their description and claims which follow.